Latest From Eleanor Ringel Cater
Because I swallowed both versions of “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,” I usually expect to swallow Guy Ritchie’s other movies, well…lock, stock and two smoking barrels.
About Eleanor Ringel Cater
Eleanor was the film critic for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for almost 30 years. She was nominated multiple times for a Pulitzer Prize. She won the Best of Cox Critic, IMAGE Film & Video and Women In Film awards. An Atlanta native, she graduated from Westminster and Brown University. She was the critic on WXIA’s Noonday, a member of Entertainment Weekly’s Critics Grid and wrote TV Guide’s movie/DVD. She is member of the National Society of Film Critics and currently talks about movies on WMLB and writes the Time Out column for the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
More from Eleanor Ringel Cater
Because I swallowed both versions of “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,” I usually expect to swallow Guy Ritchie’s other movies, well…lock, stock and two smoking barrels.
“Just Mercy” would be the one of the best movies of the year if the year were 1988 or even 1968. There were moments when I glanced away from the screen, looked back and fully expected to see Sidney Poitier.
By Eleanor Ringel Cater “1917” occupies a kind of unusual no-man’s land, somewhere between Kirk Douglas’ “Paths of Glory” and Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now.” It’s not as good as either of those masterworks, but it’s good – really good – in its own way.
As a woman, bibliophile and – you guessed it! – feminist, I’m supposed to love Louisa May Alcott’s 19th-century novel, “Little Women,” about four sisters and their mom, living in Massachusetts during the Civil War. Well, I don’t. I don’t hate it, but the adventures of Lassie or the Black Stallion always appealed more.
“Bombshell” is not only one of the best movies of the year. It’s also one of the most important. Never mind what Clint Eastwood’s “Richard Jewell” may or may not be saying about females in the media. This movie looks at males and females in the media, and I don’t think there are going to be any lawsuits.
In the “The Aeronauts,” Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones take us up, up and away in their beautiful hot-air balloon. It’s a trip you don’t want to miss – especially on the big screen.
“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” may be one of the most daring movies of the year. The title suggests kid stuff; you know, a chance to embrace the affable and spiritually-inclined children’s show host many of us – or our kids or our grandkids – grew up with. Fred Rogers was, in his way, the “anti-Sesame Street.”
Filmmaker Noah Baumbach’s newest, “Marriage Story,” is the story of a marriage, all right, but a marriage at its worst point, i.e., a marriage in meltdown.
Maybe I’m all Martin Scorsese’d out. After all, I’ve been watching his movies for almost half a century. But “The Irishman,” which I’d hoped would be his piece de resistance, his final say on what he had to say about the gangster genre that, with few exceptions, he pretty much owns, didn’t do it for me.
In “JoJo Rabbit,” Mel Brooks meets Wes Anderson, and it’s not a good match. Brooks is broad, vulgar, vaudevillian. Anderson is arch, aesthetic, a minimalist of sorts.
